


In The Hands of The Enemy

by Carrion_CarryOn



Series: Whumptober 2020 [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Abuse, Collars, Drugs, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26808691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrion_CarryOn/pseuds/Carrion_CarryOn
Summary: Story behind how Good Boi Brute, the hound of the Blood's Bane crew met their captain, Ruse Get'al.
Relationships: None
Series: Whumptober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955218





	In The Hands of The Enemy

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on Tumblr:  
> https://horsefeathears.tumblr.com/post/630909556608892928/whumptober-2020-in-the-hands-of-the-enemy

Open air, wide stretches of plain, rocky mountain paths beneath every foot; his first memories. Powerful legs and stretching claws and long tail and the scent of blood. Scrambling over outcroppings, racing down fallen trees, practicing his bite with others that looked like him. They were friendly, they were family, they were home. He sometimes misses home, but not like he did back then.

It was after the mountains. Cold metal and cramped box, sore feet and tense claws. He wanted to stretch out and run like he’d always done. He wasn’t used to being unable to play. That was the time he missed home the most.

There were rough hands with biting sticks and heavy lead around his shoulders. It weight on his neck. He could not move so well.

He showed them his visions, tried to talk with them as he’d done his family. He gave them grassy plains and firm mountain rock. He gave them warm bodies on a cold, wintry night. But they only gave him that dreaded weight around his neck. And by that instrument, he was dragged from the box and shoved into another. At least that had been somewhat bigger.

The nights were so cold, and there was fear all around him. Normally, he might have enjoyed the scent, but now the chilled, muted terror came from him, too. It was uncertain and scary and cold. He longed for his home.

When he was not feeling forlorn and his limbs weren’t stiff, he would taste the meat and dirt they gave him. It was meat only in name - no hunt to be had, so it did little to satisfy him. The dirt was dirt because it tasted so. Though, thinking back on it, they may have been trying to emulate the green back home. But it hadn’t tasted right.

Their water wasn’t much better. It put him off at first, because of how strange it smelled. Eventually thirst had driven him to the rounded thing which held the water. It wasn’t a pond, nor a pool, not big enough for that. But it wasn’t a river or fall, either. Just sat, small and sad and strange. The water it contained made him feel heavy and his mind foggy. He couldn’t give anyone his thoughts anymore.

More than anything, that scared him the worst. Without his visions, how would he talk with others? He wouldn’t, couldn’t.

There was more of the same for a long, long time. Longer, it seemed, than his time home. Maybe it had been (he is still new to time). He could not talk and he could not stretch and his fur fell more than it normally did. And that made him colder which, in turn, made him more miserable. His teeth showed themselves to any creature that came too close to the box. He didn’t care that the weight around his neck got heavier.

Then there was a tendon which tracked from his neck to hated hands. One pair of hands changed to another and then the hands pulled. It hurt to move so far after so long without stretching. That new place was hot and the plants were tall. There was no grass and there were no others like him.

He hunted with those hands, never far behind, and for a time, that was good. The weight remained but he was free to hunt. Soon, the hotness and the trees no longer bothered him. But that ended before he was ready.

The hands held another tendon, at the end of which was a different creature. So much was wrong. Dark, full coat, long ears, and short tail (shorter than his, anyway). Their jaws came forward, but seemed far too narrow. One tooth at the very end of its jaw came forward and out, a single tusk. He hated it.

It ignored him though he was older. Every vision he gave it was shaken off. It did not hunt with him, but against him, and then the hands would strike him instead of the creature! When he’d had enough, they fought one another.

Tangling knots of hatred and fury, every tooth singing joy as they sank into flesh. Claws to tear and legs kicking, bone crushed underfoot. Ruined plants around their messy battleground, trampled to nothing but green pulp and some bits of stick. Fear hung in the air and, at last, it was the one wearing the stench. For as long as it had been in his life, they’d never once been afraid. But he had.

He could recall every time he’d been struck, or bitten, blood drawn when he could not understand why. That niggling of fear which would strike through his bones whenever it caught the prey’s scent well after he had. It would steal and it would cry and the hands would not hurt it. But those hands hurt him.

With a final strike, it was dying on the ground. He howled his triumph and danced through the body. It wasn’t food, it wasn’t family, it wasn’t anything!

The hands had come, and the weight on his neck choked tight. He didn’t care, and he killed the hands, too. He lived for longer than home, and longer than the boxes, till both faded in memory; visions of either were harder to see.

That’s when she came. She knew what it meant to hunt. She didn’t even need a family to do so! She came and she killed and she left. Every time he saw her, he watched. Her scent became familiar to him, metal and blood and something… something else. But it was her. She killed and he waited for her to leave. She did and he laid in the spot where her prey had fallen. She hadn’t ever brought a family, or a creature, didn’t need them. Could she need him?

He followed her and gave her visions as she rested. Where to find what prey, locations of fresh-fallen water, and more. And he gave her visions of his home. The plains weren’t as vivid and the mountains weren’t so solid, but he did his best. For her.

She barked out loud one morning and she seemed to search. He didn’t let her search for long. He sat there, wondering what she saw through the metal (how can any creature see through that?). He was all patched white fur and fresh pink skin, old scars but brighter eyes. His fingers and toes twitched their claws and his tail swayed languidly. The metal round his neck remained, but not for much longer.

She fed him something, the strange scent of which she always smelled, and he liked it well enough. She used her claws and the metal dropped away. She whistled and twittered like the birds, he learned she had a special one just for him. He learned, slowly, what some barks meant. He learned the whistling tended to mean little. Then there was her whistle and bark meant for him and him alone.

“Brute!”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope that wasn't too bad of a read. If you did enjoy it, let me know. If there's anything I ought to change or add/subtract, feel free to leave a comment (constructive, please, if you can).


End file.
